The Best Psychological Thrillers of November

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The job du jour in thrillers is the influencer, an unfortunate but accurate reflection of life. Time was a beautiful, fashionable woman would be a model, or an actress, or a waitress who wants to be a model or an actress and sometimes teaches yoga too. Or meditation. Anything where she can be photographed in enviable scenic locations doing something Insta worthy: headstands! Jet skiing! Joking with some native children! She’s plugging several athleisure companies, a pop-up that makes pure beeswax candles infused with exotic oils, and a new and better bottled water. 

Lots to cover this month. Stay tuned for the aforementioned influencers, an extreme prepper, a tech whiz, a cop in a college town, and a private chef.

Ewan Morrison, How to Survive Everything
(Harper Perennial)

Scot Ewan Morrison wins the most memorable title contest of the month, though I do fear for anyone who mistakes this thriller for a handbook. Haley and Ben Crowe live with their divorced mother, but in the face of a new, even deadlier pandemic their father wants to take the children and go into hiding NOW. Yes, it’s a prepper thriller—the first I’ve encountered since we had a real-life lockdown that must have made those who stockpile food and ammo do victory dances fist-pumping and shouting I was right! in their saferooms. Dad kidnaps Haley and Ben, whisking them over the river, through the trees, and far off the grid. The kids are determined to escape and get back to their mother, but what if the scarier and scarier things their deranged father tells them about the old world is true?

Lisa Unger, Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
(Park Row)

Lisa Unger is a name you should know—in fact, it’s one of four or five I rattle off when people want recommendations of crime writers you can grab at the airport bookstore (someday I’ll tell you the rest of them). She consistently turns out excellent thrillers, often set in the less weird region of Florida, the west coast, where she lives. This one is top-notch: in a season lousy with secluded cabins, I will remember the super luxe Elegant Overlook, nestled in a hamlet called Sleepy Ridge. The six in the cabin are Hannah and Bruce; Hannah’s BFF Cricket and her new boyfriend; and Hannah’s brother Mako, a tech zillionaire who has arranged the weekend, and his wife, the yoga influencer Liza. Even in the height of luxury, the vacation is not quite what Mako hoped: the caretaker is too attentive, Cricket’s boyfriend is, well, too attentive, and Hannah thinks Bruce is having an affair. At least there’s a private chef. 

Lauren Nossett, The Resemblance
(Flatiron Books)

In our Dark Academia entry for this month, Nossett, a PhD in German literature, makes her debut in a book which starts with a dead frat boy, which is refreshing in a subgenre where women are victimized early and often. Still, the guy is dead—he walked into a crosswalk and was hit by a car. The only thing witnesses agree on is that the driver was smiling, and he looked identical to the victim. Nossett’s protagonist, Detective Marlitt Kaplan of the Athens (Georgia) police, has a hell of a time investigating Greek life, where everyone is rich, powerful, and advised by high-priced attorneys not to talk to police—especially not to divulge the secrets at the heart of the fraternity system.

Katy Hays, The Cloisters
(Atria)

This one is for all you lovers of tarot cards, medieval art, and deadly games of power and seduction. It’s also for art lovers, particularly ones who know the magic of the Cloisters, a museum at the sharp top of Manhattan where the Museum of Metropolitan Art’s medieval holdings are housed. Once again, there is a fresh-faced heroine, Ann Stilwell, but she is raring to intern in the curatorial department at the Met. After her initial disappointment when she’s assigned to The Cloisters, she falls in with the quirky staff and an obsession with a fifteenth-century tarot deck which might be able to predict the future. 

Kimberly Belle, The Personal Assistant
(Park Row)

I’ve been wondering what is going to happen to the workplace thriller now that the workplace is a repurposed closet or the far end of the kitchen table. This book doesn’t answer that question—it’s not so much about work as it is about the relationship between an influencer, Alex, whose success lies largely on the curatorial work of her assistant, AC. I don’t doubt that behind Alex’s feed of family moments and motivational sayings is something really and truly evil, but this book isn’t about that either. One of Alex’s followers turns toxic, an unfortunate post goes viral, and Alex can’t find AC anywhere. That’s the plot of the book: turns out that perfect personal assistant was not who she claimed to be—oh, and there’s a murder, too. 

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